A home that talks back

Take a look inside the house consider the first 100% Smarthome. Julie Wolfe reports.
11Alive

A computer-controlled home, where everything from the lights to kitchen appliances are voice-activated and fully automated, is here. And it's cheaper than you might think.

Matt Mullenweg's home is a prototype. It's considered by many the world's first "smart-phone home". Mullenweg is an investor in Smartthings, the company responsible for the technology that makes it all possible.

Alex Hawkinson, CEO of Smartthings, explains how the house knows when you're awake: "It can sense it via motion or you can tell it good morning. In this case, one of the developers in the open community integrates a Jawbone Up-- which is wearable and tracking your sleep patterns."

When the tour walks into the kitchen, the house says, "Good morning, Matt, Smartthings has started brewing the coffee for you."

The light of a lamp lets you know what your commute will be like. A green light means an easy commute. "A developer's written an app where you can put in your commute pattern and it checks the traffic and it will tell this lamp to change colors based on the timing of your commute," Hawkingson explains.

Smartthings uses a hub that's a lot like a router. Once you install that, you can download different apps to control different devices. You can buy the hub for $99. A starter kit, including the hub and devices to connect your appliances, costs $299.